Welcome!
Hello! This guide is to help any student do research for literature classes. If you want to meet one-on-one with a librarian, use the profile box on this page to meet with me, or use the Humanities librarians group to find another librarian who can meet with you.
Primary Sources
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Other ZSR Primary Source DatabasesFull listing of all the ZSR primary source databases
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Early English Books Online - EEBO This link opens in a new windowFull text of books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England or in English between 1475 and 1700. Includes many of the items indexed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Corresponds to the Pollard and Redgrave, and Wing Short-Title Catalogues, as well as Thomason Tracts. Coverage: 1473-1700
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Early English Prose Fiction This link opens in a new windowOver 200 works of fictional prose by writers from the British Isles from the period 1500-1700. Coverage: 1500-1700
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Early American Imprints, Series I & II (combined) This link opens in a new windowIncludes the full text of all known existing books, pamphlets, and broadsides published in the 13 colonies and the United States between 1639-1819. Combined search of both the Evans collection and the Shaw & Shoemaker collection. Coverage: 1639-1819
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Early American Fiction This link opens in a new windowA collection of American novels and short stories written before 1875. Includes both well-known and obscure figures. Coverage: 1789-1875
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Eighteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new windowContains 96 works in English prose by 18th Century British writers. Coverage: 1700-1780
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Eighteenth Century Collections Online - ECCO This link opens in a new windowContains books, pamphlets and broadsides published in England or in English between 1701 and 1800. Includes many of the items indexed in the English Short Title Catalogue. Coverage: 1701-1800
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Eighteenth Century Drama This link opens in a new windowArchive of almost every play submitted for licence in England between 1737 and 1824. Also includes The London Stage 1660-1800 which is a searchable database of every performance in London during those years and the Biographical Dictionary of Actors etc. 1660-1800.
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Nineteenth-Century Fiction This link opens in a new windowIncludes 250 novels from the period 1786 to 1903, including works by all the major Victorian novelists such as Dickens, Thackeray, the Brontes, Eliot and Hardy, as well as the landmarks of Gothic and other fiction from the Romantic period. Coverage: 1786-1903
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Nineteenth Century Collections Online This link opens in a new windowPrimary source collections of the “long” nineteenth century. Collections are sourced through partnerships with major world libraries and specialist libraries. Content includes monographs, newspapers, manuscripts, ephemera, maps, and more. Coverage: 1769-1906
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Literary Manuscripts: Berg This link opens in a new windowManuscript collections of Victorian authors from the Berg collection at the NY Public Library. Each author collection is included in its entirety. Authors represented include: Matthew Arnold, Emily Bronte, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Robert Browning, Wilkie Collins, Joseph Conrad, Charles Dickens, George Eliot, George Gissing, Thomas Hardy, Henry James, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Ruskin, Alfred Tennyson, William Makepeace Thackeray.
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Literary Manuscripts: Leeds This link opens in a new windowThis resource contains manuscripts of 17th and 18th century verse held in the Brotherton Collection at the University of Leeds. Alongside original compositions are copied verses, translations, songs and riddles.
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Perdita Manuscripts This link opens in a new windowManuscripts written or compiled by women in the British Isles during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Produced in association with the Perdita Project based at the University of Warwick and Nottingham Trent University, the project seeks to rediscover early modern women authors who were “lost” because their writing exists only in manuscript form. Coverage: 1500-1700
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Editions and Adaptations of Shakespeare This link opens in a new windowContains 11 major editions from the First Folio of 1623 to the Cambridge edition of 1863-6, 28 separate contemporary printings of individual plays and poems, selected apocrypha, and related works. Also contains more than one hundred adaptations, sequels and burlesques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Coverage: 1591-1911
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New Oxford Shakespeare Online This link opens in a new windowFull Oxford editions of all of Shakespeare's works, both in modern spelling and original spelling. Also includes the Oxford Authorship Companion and introductory materials for each play.
Writing and Language Help
ZSR subscribes to the following items that can help you as you write papers for English classes.
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MLA Handbook Plus This link opens in a new windowThe go-to resource for writers of research papers and anyone citing sources. MLA Handbook Plus includes the full text of the ninth edition of the MLA Handbook as well as the first editions of both the MLA Guide to Digital Literacy and the MLA Guide to Undergraduate Research in Literature.
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Oxford English Dictionary This link opens in a new windowThe definitive dictionary of the English Language. Provides timelines of when words entered the language, sources for words, and audio pronunciation guides. Coverage: 1989 Edition, with updates
Background Resources for Literature Research
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Gale Literature This link opens in a new windowSearch across literary biography, literary criticism, genre studies, reviews, and primary sources across thousands of Gale publications. Good starting point for doing any kind of research in English literature. Coverage: varies
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Literary Reference Source Plus This link opens in a new windowContains author biographies, literary criticism, journal articles and book reviews. Formerly called Literary Reference Center Plus. Coverage: Details not available
Background Resources on History, Issues, Society, etc.
If you need background information on historical events, societal issues, or other topics covered in literature here are some sources that might help.
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Encyclopaedia Britannica Online This link opens in a new windowIncludes articles ranging from concise explanations to comprehensive expositions and from historical treatments of subjects to current-events coverage. Includes Britannica's Book of the Year and Nations of the World. Coverage: 1994-
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Oxford Reference Online This link opens in a new windowSearch across dozens of reference books in a wide variety of disciplines. Especially strong in literature and the humanities!
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SAGE Reference This link opens in a new windowProvides access to ebook versions of encyclopedias and handbooks in the social and behavioral sciences.
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Credo Reference This link opens in a new windowSearch across hundreds of subject encyclopedias and other reference works. A great place to find background information on almost any research topic. Includes subject trees, pro/con resources, links to scholarly articles and more.
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Gale eBooks This link opens in a new windowSearch across hundreds of subject encyclopedias and other reference works. A great place to find background information on almost any research topic. Includes a topic finder for help with narrowing or broadening your research topic. Coverage: varies
Searching Primo for books and more
Use Primo - the library's search interface - to locate books and other materials all in a single search. Here are a few tips to get you started:
- To find items on a theme or issue in an author's work, enter the name of the author/work and a term that best conveys the issue you are researching, e.g. Macbeth and feminis* (the asterisk is a truncation symbol that allows for word variants, such as feminist or feminism). Keep in mind that not every work of literature will have a lot of research on it - you may need to back up from your initial search to something more broad.
- To find works about a literary author or other figure, enter the person's name in quotes, i.e. "Jane Austen" - adding in other terms will help narrow down your results - i.e. "Jane Austen" marriage or "Maya Angelou" "civil rights"
- To find works around a particular genre, us that genre in your search i.e. poetry abolition or "short story" war
Journal Databases
Literary Criticism Databases
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MLA International Bibliography This link opens in a new windowContains articles, books, chapters of books, conference proceedings, dissertations, and working papers on topics relating to literature, modern languages, folklore, and linguistics. Coverage: 1926-
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Humanities International Index This link opens in a new windowContains scholarly journals and other periodicals and magazines covering the humanities including art, classics, history, literature, philosophy and more. Coverage: 1975-
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JSTOR This link opens in a new windowA full-text database of archived issues of academic journals. Since JSTOR is a backfiles project, a typical coverage range is the beginning of a journal until three or five years ago. Artstor images are now integrated into JSTOR. Supported in part by the Dail Endowment Fund. Coverage: Varies
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Project MUSE This link opens in a new windowProvides access to the full text of scholarly journals and books in the arts and humanities and social sciences. Coverage: Varies
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ProQuest One Literature This link opens in a new windowProvides content and tools to support the study of literature from a variety of sources including primary texts, criticism, full-text journals, book reviews, dissertations, eBooks, reference material, audio, and video. Coverage: varies
Other Databases Of Interest
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America: History and Life This link opens in a new windowSearch for articles about the history and culure of the United States and Canada. Publications include peer-reviewed journals, magazines, dissertations, books, and more. Access is limited to six simultaneous users. Note: For world history topics, use the Historical Abstracts database. Coverage: 1964-
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Historical Abstracts This link opens in a new windowProvides indexing and abstracts for journal articles, books, and dissertations covering the history of the world from 1450-- except the U.S. and Canada. For similar coverage of the U.S. and Canada, use America History and Life. Access is limited to six simultaneous users. Coverage: 1954-
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International Medieval Bibliography This link opens in a new windowA bibliography of modern scholarship concerning the European Middle Ages (c. 450-1500). Coverage: 1967-
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Contemporary Women's Issues (Gale OneFile) This link opens in a new windowprovides access to current full text and backfile content covering topics including civil rights, health, education, professional development, and entrepreneurship. Coverage: 1992-
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Performing Arts Periodicals Database This link opens in a new windowPerforming Arts Periodicals Database indexes around 400 scholarly and trade journals, magazines, books, and newspapers covering theater, dance, film, television, stagecraft, broadcast arts, storytelling, and more. It draws from both current files and selected backfiles to 1864 and 134 publications are included in full text. Coverage: 1864-
